An excerpt from a long opinion by Judge Jasmine Yoon (W.D. Va.) Monday in Doe v. Albemarle County School Bd.:…
The post Does Allowing Turning Point USA “Two Genders: One Truth” Event to Be Held and Promoted at Public School Violate Title IX? appeared first on Reason Magazine.
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An excerpt from a long opinion by Judge Jasmine Yoon (W.D. Va.) Monday in Doe v. Albemarle County School Bd.:
Plaintiff J. Doe is a nonbinary student who attends a high school that is operated by Defendant Albemarle County School Board (“ACSB”). Doe has experienced gender dysphoria for as long as they can remember. As a result of discomfort with their biological sex and experiences being misgendered, Doe has battled significant symptoms of anxiety.
In September 2025, a Turning Point USA (“TPUSA”) student club at Western Albemarle High School (“WAHS”) informed the principal that they planned to host guest speaker and Defendant Victoria Cobb for an event entitled “Two Genders: One Truth.” Cobb, the president of a Christian lobbying organization, has publicly opposed gender affirming efforts and denied that gender identity is immutable. After receiving community pushback, as well as demand letters advocating both for and against allowing the event, ACSB decided that the speaker event could proceed as a club meeting during the lunch hour, where student attendance was voluntary, so long as the event remained orderly and respectful. The club promoted the event with flyers throughout the school during the week leading up to the event.
Doe sued, “claiming that ACSB’s decision to allow the TPUSA club to host and promote the Event constituted deliberate indifference to severe and pervasive sex-based harassment.” The court rejected the claim on the facts, but concluded that allowing the event may have created a subjectively hostile educational environment:
Here, the assertion that there are only two genders, as expressed through the title of the Event and the surrounding context, denies the very existence of Doe’s gender identity. The Speaker’s prior public comments about gender identity and the Club’s previous petition against transgender girls using girls’ bathrooms, make clear that the “Two Genders: One Truth” Event and the Speaker’s message oppose the recognition and support of nonbinary and gender diverse identities.
The complaint alleges Doe was subjected to this message through the flyers posted “on every wall” in the school building for five days leading up to the Event, the three days of promotion in the morning announcements and daily bulletin, and the Speaker’s statements to Doe and hundreds of their peers. See Complaint (alleging that the Speaker asserted “that policies that allow transgender individuals to use the restrooms and/or locker rooms consistent with their gender identity posed a risk to safety,” “that no policies should be driven by gender but rather should only be rooted in biological sex, and “that individuals cannot transition genders and that this was a matter of basic biology”).) Moreover, the comment [by a student who attended the event]—that “at a hood school, these trannies would get beaten up”—employs derogatory, name-calling language.
ACSB asserts that the Speaker’s statements do not constitute harassment, as Doe “does not allege that Ms. Cobb conveyed her statements in an aggressive manner or in a manner that mocked or ridiculed individuals who are transgender or gender diverse.” But ACSB does not provide any case law requiring that discriminatory or offensive statements be made with an aggressive or mocking tone to constitute harassment. Rather, the message—that Doe’s gender identity is invalid or nonexistent—is inherently offensive, “degrading[,] and humiliating” to Doe, regardless of the way in which this message is delivered.
Other courts have also recognized the emotional and mental harm imposed by statements or symbols expressing opposition to certain gender identities or sexual orientations, without placing any emphasis on the way these messages are communicated. In L.M. v. Town of Middleborough (1st Cir. 2024), the First Circuit held that a school could require a seventh grader to remove his shirt, which stated “There Are Only Two Genders,” without violating the First Amendment. In doing so, the court explained that even this silently expressed speech, not targeted towards specific students, has a “demeaning nature” that has a “tendency to poison the educational atmosphere.” Further, the court wrote, officials “knew the serious nature of the struggles, including suicidal ideation, that some of those students had experienced related to their treatment based on their gender identities by other students, and the effect those struggles could have on those students’ ability to learn.”
The court recognized that the “message is not at the farthest end of demeaning,” but that it nevertheless “denies the self-conceptions of certain middle-school students” that “are no less deeply rooted than those based on religion, race, sex, or sexual orientation.” See, e.g., Harper v. Poway Unified Sch. Dist. (9th Cir. 2006), vacated as moot by Harper ex rel. Harper v. Poway Unified Sch. Dist. (2007) (characterizing a t-shirt stating “Homosexuality is Shameful” as “demeaning,” “injurious to gay and lesbian students,” and a “psychological attack[ ] that cause[s] young people to question their self-worth and their rightful place in society); Nuxoll ex rel. Nuxoll v. Indian Prairie Sch. Dist. # 204 (7th Cir. 2008) (upholding a school rule that prohibits “(1) derogatory comments on (2) unalterable or otherwise deeply rooted personal characteristics about which most people, including—perhaps especially including—adolescent schoolchildren, are highly sensitive”).
While many of these cases do not involve Title IX claims and thus do not directly address whether the Event and its promotion could constitute Title IX sex-based harassment, they underscore the humiliation and offensiveness of language that rejects the existence of transgender or gender diverse identities…. [O]ffensive verbal statements alone can constitute sex-based harassment, and that even comments not directed towards the plaintiff can support a finding of sex-based harassment.
The court was also open to the argument that the alleged harassment was severe or pervasive enough to create an objectively hostile environment:
To be actionable under Title IX, the harassment must be “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive,” and “so undermine[ ] and detract[ ] from the victim[‘s] educational experience, that the victim-student[ ] [is] effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.” ACSB argues “Doe does not plausibly allege that the speaker event and its promotion created an ‘environment that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive'” ….
Here, the amended complaint plausibly alleges that Doe subjectively perceived the promotion of the Event, the views conveyed during the Event, and the commentary after as hostile and abusive. The Speaker’s professed belief that Doe’s gender identity does not exist is deeply demeaning to Doe and other gender diverse students. See Fellers v. Kelley (D.N.H. 2025) (“[T]he symbolic message [opposing transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports] included a demeaning and harassing assertion—an assertion of inauthenticity, falsity and nonexistence with respect to some students’ core and immutable characteristics (i.e., their gender identities). And, it seems evident that had the symbols been worn by students in school or during school activities, they could be barred as reasonably interpreted in context to convey a harassing, demeaning message likely to have a serious negative psychological impact on students who identify as transgender.”)
Doe contends that the Event’s message, as conveyed through the promotional materials and the Event itself, caused them to feel serious anxiety and discomfort. They have “broken down sobbing, questioning why their gender identity—who they are—is offensive to others.” This suffices to plausibly allege Doe’s subjective perception that the promotion and the Event were hostile and abusive.
To establish an objectively reasonable belief that the environment was hostile, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the environment was “permeated with ‘discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult,’ … that is ‘sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions’ of, in this case, the victim’s educational environment.” … Because the speaker is an adult, her remarks to the students—in which she denied the existence of Doe’s and other students’ gender identities and asserted that policies should only be rooted in biological sex—may be more harmful than if only students made such comments. On the other hand, Cobb is not a WAHS teacher, and Doe does not include any other allegations suggesting that she is in a position of power or influence over Doe and other gender diverse students.
Even though attendance at the Event was not required, it was held at lunchtime in the same building where Doe and other gender diverse youth were requ
